1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an endoscope which is inserted into a body cavity and the like to perform endoscopy and the like.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, endoscopes have been widely used in medical and industrial fields and so on. For example, in the medical field, endoscopes are used when performing various treatments to a diseased part of a body cavity portion and tissues and the like of a living body. When performing the various treatments to the diseased part by using an endoscope, it is necessary to smoothly insert the endoscope into the curved body cavity of the living body. For this reason, an inserting section of the endoscope usually has flexibility. However, there was a problem that when the inserting section only has flexibility, operations at hand-side of the inserting section are not fully transmitted to a distal end side thereof, thus preventing the direction of the distal end side of the inserting section from being settled, resulting in the endoscope incapable of being smoothly inserted into the curved body cavity of the living body. To solve such a problem, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2002-330924, for example, proposes an endoscope wherein an inserting section is provided with a flexible tube portion and a variable rigidity mechanism, and wherein an operating section provided with an adjusting knob capable of operating the variable rigidity mechanism by an operation at hand.